Green free spellbreaker SS is an utter joke I won’t even consider anymore after comparing it to bare bones loxblades or chillstrifes. Relying on mirror/blade barrier resets makes life surprisingly comfortable so long as you understand the timing but that’s a recipe for slow play. Most of my recent testing has avoided hourglass and focused on including single affix MIs to experiment with skipping Ulo buff for Ulzuin’s OA/DA or flexing things the other way to ride the line assuming ulo res.
I’ll revisit hourglass when I’m able. Belgo relic shenanigans are all the more favorable in that arrangement. My main dislike of hourglass approach is the big bite it takes out of your damage. Points are already strained.
Yup, Hourglass route nets you way less flat cold. I tried route with max damage and also dreamy Lox daggers. I had around 30k WD and definetely the build was still meh. But that was before SS buff and Crucible was easier. So perhaps I will try it again in the future, The concept is appealing. I wonder if it’s possible to utilize Amatok’s Breath on top of SS for extra damage&mobility
You want displacement. Dodging something you’d otherwise have to mirror is just pure gold. It gets you out when you need out, it’s quite possible you’ll die in the middle of Amatok’s breath as it lacks the properties that protect you when you’re shadowstriking.
Kicking it around every which way the one problem I’m always finding is chaos resistance. No pieces that line up (anymore, old DM jacket chaos res) provide it and none of the augments for jewelry or weapons have a whiff of it. Zantai doesn’t like dying god being used for non chaos/vit builds? Well I’m sorry that I need OA, DA and chaos res. I’d like to investigate other options that don’t lean on korvaak without resorting to MIs beyond an acceptable range of rolls but hey big K gives the Fing C res. Boots of primordial rage line up nicely with -you guessed it- chaos res plus necessary stunres and a helping of OA. Helm? Purple ravager’s. You need the ele res AND the chaos res… and the +1 all skills.
Swap the +% crit damage to SS modifier on loxblades to chaos res comparable to the ather on chillstrifes and life should be more comfortable for cold SS. As it stands you can barely make overcaps using Ulo buff and even then it depends on rolls… or you don’t because there’s instances of 40%+ from a single enemy source so push mirror and hope you get lucky with crits.
OA concerns will probably keep the devotion page from venturing towards green/purple but maybe something can be worked if you accept that it’s going to depend on cruci buffs.
It’s a general problem with cold SS and the choices/nonchoices among the associated gear options. Pierce, aether, chaos and poison need to be addressed (and fire/lightning may end up a little low on overcaps)
Weapon and jewelry augs don’t give chaos res
Frostdread Cuirass laughs at stormweave armor, 36 flat cold or 36 chaos res take your pick.
Hagarrad or Iceskorn, no chaos
Silver sent or… yeah you go silver sent (shoulders)
+1 helm is mandatory, you’re deficient on points as it is. Ravager helms address fire/lit and aether OR chaos on top of providing energy regen and CDR (literally everything you want) and the RR active is a plus for nuking nemeses.
alkamos rings, spellbreaker belt, undying oath are a given.
Resistances are needed from somewhere and kuba pants fit oh so nicely. You have to branch out to greens somewhere for resistances.
Night’s Embrace amulet with (lame single target) shadow strike bonuses has nothing for res basically. no noteworthy amulet comes with chaos res by default, so there is kaisan’s but again more MIs on top of we’re already using two weapons and pants…
Boot wise there are currently no dense chaos res affixes and stunres needs to be addressed somewhere. If you’re not grabbing primordial rage for the stunres here that’s 30% chaos res you have to find elsewhere.
15% chaos res out of DG
16% chaos res off two living armors (phys res isn’t that high, not to mention we need all the stats on these components)
30% primordial rage if you’re using it
-25% for ultimate
= 36% with few options beyond augments for boosting it. Note this is in addition to addressing poison, pierce and aether. 20% chaos res node on korvaak allows me to barely cap everything (stonehide/NA kuba pants). Infiltrator doesn’t have this issue as much due to steel resolve though surprisingly it doesn’t come out ahead on clear times due to the delay on its AoE / the damage boosts being overkill in most cases / lower average OA leading to more SS casts that fail to crit on the single target portion… and some QoL stuff.
I’m pointing to chaos as the main deficiency because there already are options for addressing poison/acid (ugdenbog leather) and because Chillstrifes already cover aether so making another +aether res dagger would just be silly.
